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Phenomenography, as a qualitative research methodology, is distinguished by its simultaneous focus on investigating (a) variation in ways of experiencing phenomena in the world, and (b) structural relationships that link and separate the different ways of experiencing. The focus on structural relationships is often regarded as the most distinctive and useful aspect of the methodology, but it is also the least well understood aspect. To help explicate the nature of structural relationships in phenomenographic research, this paper reports the outcomes of an empirical study of different understandings of structural relationships amongst educational researchers. Structural relationships were variously described as: (1) hierarchical relationships; (2) hierarchically-inclusive relationships; (3) meaning-structure relationships; (4) part-whole relationships; and (5) multi-faceted relationships. The outcomes of the study highlight a number of critical aspects of the notion of structural relationships that researchers need to become aware of in order to use the methodology in a sophisticated way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Netnography, an innovative methodology, relatively unusual in Education research. It explores the ethical approach developed for a study of UK mother perspectives on primary school homework found on open-access parenting websites, reviewing issues considered at the project's outset and examining researcher decisions around the ethical stance. Using the concept of 'negotiated ethics', ethical obstacles were deliberated, to develop an appropriate ethical position and procedure which answered challenging issues arising from the methodology, research aims and particular field. Building on an existing proposition that the internet is a hybrid of space and text, the paper reveals how this conceptualisation, accompanied by an understanding of contributors to forum interaction as a type of participant-publisher, was a prerequisite for establishing the ethical grounds. The paper recommends tailoring ethics procedures to the nuanced contexts of individual online projects, their methodologies, topics and fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that many sub-populations do not take part in research, especially participants from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, is a serious problem in education research. To increase the participation of such groups we must discover what social, economic and practical factors prevent participation, and how to overcome these barriers. In the current paper, we review the literature on this topic, before describing a case study that demonstrates four potential solutions to four barriers to participation in a shared reading intervention for families from lower SES backgrounds. We discuss the implications of our findings for family-based interventions more generally, and the difficulty of balancing strategies to encourage participation with adhering to the methodological integrity of a research study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a researcher's account of the qualitative methods used in a research project which aimed to establish how children define and make sense of the concept ‘family’, from a sociological perspective. Research was carried out with 183 children aged between 8 and 14 in schools in two parts of eastern England; a rural area and a large town with a significant population of British Muslims originating from Mirpur and Azad Kashmir in Pakistan. This paper aims to contribute to growing debates about methods and methodologies for working with children. The paper gives the background to the study and then describes the methods used. It then discusses the issues of working with children from minority ethnic backgrounds. It explores some ethical considerations, focusing on issues of informed consent. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the researcher's role in research with children and discusses children's views on being involved in a research project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of research governance structures in universities has created huge disquiet amongst academic researchers. The unquestioning adoption of a medical model of ethical review based upon positivist methodological assumptions has created for many a mismatch between their own ongoing ethical research practice and the process of obtaining clearance from Research Ethics Committees (REC). This paper examines the issues that have contributed to dissatisfaction with the ethical review model that is prevalent within the modern university. Using examples from the authors' own experiences, the dynamics of values, interests and power in research governance is examined from multiple perspectives including that of REC member and applicant; lecturer/student supervisor; researcher; and university administrator. The paper reveals a rift between the values and objectives of the key players in research governance within the modern university and concludes by asking whether differences can be resolved so that a collaborative approach to ethical review may be incorporated into a renewed academic research culture. It is suggested that the alternative is increasing alienation from anything to do with 'ethics', with potentially serious consequences for the ethical standards of social research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those aiming to respond to the recognised shortage in quantitative skills within the UK social sciences have increasingly focused on the content of undergraduate degree programmes. Problems occur when quantitative methods are generally confined to a dedicated module, detached from substantive topics. This model makes it hard for students to understand or engage with the contribution of quantitative research to their discipline and can perpetuate negative perceptions of quantitative training. We suggest a solution to this problem is ‘quantitative embedding’, in which quantitative evidence and methods are incorporated into substantive teaching in the social sciences. We illustrate quantitative embedding with case studies from an ESRC funded project based in The University of Manchester, where teaching partnerships have developed curriculum innovations in Sociology and Politics. The paper then discusses the challenges of disseminating quantitative embedding, highlighting the need to bridge separate communities of practice that can isolate quantitative specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Initiatives, like the UK ESRC’s RDI/CI programmes and the Q-Step Centres, have a long-term aim of addressing the well-documented decline in the pool of academics able and willing to teach quantitative methods (QM). However, these initiatives will take time to make an impact; therefore, the upskilling of current staff is a vital strategy if we want to maintain QM in curricula. This paper draws on findings from the ESRC RDI project, ‘No More Pointy Clicky, numbers stuff; building staff quantitative skills’. This project focussed on upskilling staff in a large Sociology department. The project was committed to delivering training to develop staff competence in QM; however, it became clear that this alone would not be sufficient to build staff confidence. Therefore, the project rolled-out a more complex strategy that addressed a range of central issues, including, pedagogy, infrastructure, Departmental resourcing and strategy, and staff worldviews, which this article explores. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research involving children, deemed to have difficulties with conventional means of communication, can perpetuate reductive forms of representation of children's knowledges and experiences. This article focuses on the possibilities and opportunities that visual and creative methods can offer to researching with children. Children advance their views in and through spontaneous and concrete forms of participation. Autonomy in aesthetic acts is central to this methodology; to explore practices that produce and reproduce presuppositions deriving from societal attitudes affecting research with children, their agency and self-presentation. This cross-cultural study was conducted in Central Italy and North West England: children contributed their perspectives and experiences through participation in a series of creative encounters resulting in aesthetic and embodied outcomes of sociological and educational significance. The study contributes to the debate on children's autonomy and the value and quality of participation through artistic practice. Examples from the corpus of data, which includes a series of artefacts and over 900 photographs from each geo-cultural context, are presented. The study shows that it is possible to harmonise power imbalances in spaces of creative freedom, in research and education, where children's choices and agency are respected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational research in Britain has been subject to substantial government intervention in recent years. The rationale for this has been the demands made by a model of evidence‐based policymaking and practice that carries implications for other fields of social research as well. In this paper, the growing influence of this model is sketched, and it is argued that it relies on some very questionable assumptions about what research can offer policymakers and practitioners. It is concluded that the consequences of enforcing this model are likely to be negative for both sides, but especially for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic Monitoring in higher education has been limited and piecemeal. It often fails to explore the relationships between ethnicity and student progress and achievement, and to account for any ethnic inequalities revealed. In this paper an approach to ethnic monitoring that utilizes quantitative and qualitative methods is discussed. We argue that such an approach gives a clear statistical picture of group progress and achievement, identifies social, economic and institutional factors that might account for ethnic inequalities, and highlights the processes of racism and discrimination in higher education. All of these aspects are vital to a thorough understanding of ethnic inequalities in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the growing literature on the Muslim population in Europe shows that it remains poorly captured in official statistics. There is no authoritative map of the distribution of Muslims in Europe, and little quantitative evidence on their demographic, social or economic characteristics. This paper undertakes a systematic review of the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the quantification of Muslim populations. With few countries routinely collecting data on religious affiliation, this is generally based on an estimation of the association between religion and some other measure of identity, such as country of birth or nationality. The rationale for the various 'religiousproxy' methods, and their limitations, is discussed in relation to the range of different data regimes observed across the region. The paper argues that changes in the political status of Muslim populations (following naturalization) and the manner of their growth (increasingly driven by natural increase) have meant that in statistical terms, they represent a disappearing target. The paper concludes that meaningful statistics on the Muslims in Europe will increasingly depend on the direct measurement of religious affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychology and other disciplines of social sciences, and even the medical discipline of psychiatry, are plagued by a tendency towards instrument development. In psychiatry there is the trend to develop more and more refined scales and interview schedules, in psychology we have an increasing trend to rely on measures of validity (and reliability) in the development of instruments to quantify otherwise rather little explored fields like intelligence, loneliness, severity of addiction, happiness, depression etc. The basic question asked in this paper is whether the statistical way of constructing realities is appropriate. The term precision is introduced for 'virtual' realities created by statistical modelling, whereas the term exactness is proposed for 'social' realities, realities by consensus, or meaning shared through a common grammar and, therefore, of communication value. The paper tries to set out social realities as pertaining to realities by consensus, created by a shared grammar of constructing things rather than by statistical associations. It goes on to examine some mathematical bases of qualitative research. The paper assumes that topology, communication theory, language development, emotional intelligence and a few other issues following a common grammar of constructing meaning can be helpful in promoting social science research. The basic issue: can we delink meaning from statistics, i.e. quantification? Drawing from examples from physics and biology the paper tries to give the answer of an assertive yes to this question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances the conjecture that Social Research is becoming a discipline in its own right, independent of substantive disciplines such as sociology, social policy or political science. In the first part of the paper I briefly examine the historical foundations of research and the factors that led to its growth in the last two decades. In the second part of the paper I discuss the implications arising from an increased demand for methods training, in particular the potential impact of autonomous degrees and pathways in Social Research on traditional social science disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute to debates within the ‘new’ sociology of childhood by focusing on issues of structure and agency in the research process. Drawing on a detailed qualitative study of children's paid work and employment, funded as part of the ESRC ‘Children 5—16: growing into the 21st Century’ initiative, the discussion examines the extent to which it is possible to design and conduct research on and for children, where children are participants in the research process. The paper suggests that despite the best intentions of researchers, the structure and organization of research inevitably reduces children to the status of at best, participants rather than partners and at worst objects of the researchers gaze. The reasons for this relate to issues of methodology rather than method in that what counts as acceptable academic knowledge is defined in relatively narrow and conservative terms by academics who are invariably adults and to children's lack of research or academic capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As systematic reviews (SRs) of research increase in number, the methods used to conduct the analyses are becoming more diversified. While named in the methodological literature as an analytical approach, grounded theory (GT) is not frequently used as an approach in SRs; when it is, reviewers typically emphasize the use of GT coding and constant comparative methods while ignoring other key components of GT. In this article, we describe an SR of environmental education research that incorporated GT methodology to produce a theoretical model. To contribute to emerging discussions about methodological integrity when combining distinct methods like SRs and GT, we outline how our review methods aligned with core principles of GT and discuss implications of using GT when conducting an SR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines some methodological issues associated with the use and analysis of focus groups in social science research. It is argued that what distinguishes this methodology from other methods is the interactions which take place within focus groups, and that this should be reflected in analysis of the data. Interactive features considered here include individuals dominating within the groups, constructing the Other, tendencies towards normative discourses, and conflicts and arguments within focus groups. These are considered in relation to examples from a study of young adults' expectations of the future, and their orientations towards work and family. Possible moderator strategies and analysis approaches which take account of the interactions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a single case study of doctoral supervisory experience and practise on a joint supervision programme, for women students, which operates between a British and a Saudi Arabian university. It discusses the development of the student's research design which assessed the quality of nutritional advice gi\en by diploma-level nurses to Saudi mothers. It examines the approach of the supervisor in supporting research which both drew on internationally recognized trends in nursing research whilst attending to local requirements and conventions on the student researcher by virtue of her gender and her religious values. Consideration is given to the appropriateness of supervisory practise in such contexts, in particular the encouragement given to integrate the religious and cultural values of the researcher (Islam) within the overall research design. The article explores the research supervision skills required in such settings, and raises the question of whether a western doctoral model is transferable to non-western situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proxy reporting is a common practice during survey data collection to increase response rates while reducing fieldwork costs, and agreement between proxies and self-reports is critical to make reliable and valid inferences. This study is the first to unpack what influences proxy accuracy in a non-Western setting using data from the 2012 Qatar Education Study. We find that agreement is a function of a student’s grade in school, grades, a parent’s level of education, and the interaction between immigration status and parent education. These findings suggest in multicultural contexts, agreement may vary based on factors beyond what is typically accounted when examining the components of reporting error as a result of using proxies over self-reports. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An increasing challenge for teaching methods courses in the social sciences is the ‘critical turn’, which has encouraged some students to adopt an anti-empirical orientation. We present a case study of a compulsory undergraduate methods course in a political science department strongly influenced by post-structuralist philosophies. The first author redesigned the course to implement four constructivist pedagogical principles: (1) develop a full understanding of students’ pre-existing perceptions of political science research methods; (2) encourage students to see methodology as an inevitably contested field; (3) provide space for students to choose a methodological approach that best aligns with their personal stance on knowledge; and (4) encourage students to view research as an ongoing ‘conversation’. We critically reflect on the implementation of these constructivist pedagogical strategies and argue they improve students’ critical engagement with course material, increase linkages between methods teaching and other disciplinary subject matter, and accommodate diverse student perspectives and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Interpreters are often considered to be a form of gatekeeper to communication and understanding in situations where researchers do not speak the same language as the people who they wish to interview. The conventional best practice model poses the interpreter as a neutral conduit linking the interviewer to the interviewee. Using experiences from two research projects, in this article I challenge this model to uncover the complex interplays of power and trust in the relationships between interpreters and the imagined communities to whom they are positioned as gatekeepers, and between interpreters and the social researchers who they work alongside. I draw out some of the tensions around power and trust in the alignments and distinctions assumed, claimed and experienced in these relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The more recent interpretation of triangulation in social and educational research was summarised and examined with reference to theory triangulation applied in an empirical study. The construction of special educational needs (SEN) from the individual experiences of a sample of SEN co-ordinators and SEN teachers, parents, and adolescents with emotional and behavioural difficulties or physical disabilities were interpreted from the perspectives of personal construct theory, bio-psycho-social model, socio-psychological analysis, bioecological model of human development and a developmental model of self-understanding. Their points of convergence and divergence enriched and extended theoretical understanding. The focus on the 'verstehen' psychological level of analysis and on forging closer theory, concept and data connections influenced the range of theory choice. This instance of theory triangulation casts doubts on the Duhem-Quine thesis of underdetermination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the complex link between autobiography and research in Great Britain. Significance of educational research in schools; Analysis of the structural constraints in sociological research; Details on the proposal to research emotional changes in long-term marriages.